A Million Bottles a Minute: World's Plastic Binge 'As Dangerous as Climate Change' (theguardian.com)

Should you ever travel to one of the many uninhibited islands that dot the most remote reaches of Earth's oceans, chances are you'll find plastic bottles littering the shore. The Guardian reports: A million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute and the number will jump another 20 percent by 2021, creating an environmental crisis some campaigners predict will be as serious as climate change. New figures obtained by the Guardian reveal the surge in usage of plastic bottles, more than half a trillion of which will be sold annually by the end of the decade. The demand, equivalent to about 20,000 bottles being bought every second, is driven by an apparently insatiable desire for bottled water and the spread of a western, urbanised "on the go" culture to China and the Asia Pacific region. More than 480bn plastic drinking bottles were sold in 2016 across the world, up from about 300bn a decade ago. If placed end to end, they would extend more than halfway to the sun. By 2021 this will increase to 583.3bn, according to the most up-to-date estimates from Euromonitor International's global packaging trends report. Most plastic bottles used for soft drinks and water are made from polyethylene terephthalate (Pet), which is highly recyclable. But as their use soars across the globe, efforts to collect and recycle the bottles to keep them from polluting the oceans, are failing to keep up.

Comments

I'm guilty

[drinkypoo]

They fit in my cupholders and they are the cheapest way to buy spring water, assuming you get them on sale. I bought two flats of bottles for $3 and then they went down and I bought two more for $2 each.

I do bring them home and put them into the recycling bin, so to me the solution is to make that work. But I'd be equally happy to pay a few cents more per bottle to get compostable ones.

Re:I'm guilty

[Spy Handler]

They fit in my cupholders and they are the cheapest way to buy spring water

What, you think the bottled water you buy comes from a fresh mountain stream? Well let's just assume for the sake of argument that it does. You can get just as clean (or better) water by simply running your tap water through a decent RO filter. It will cost you a lot less in the long run. And unless you live in a shithole place, your city's tap water is probably more than safe enough to drink right out of the faucet.

Anyways yeah, that's what I do, run tap water through a RO filter and put it in a sturdy water bottle. You can probably find one that fits in your cupholder.

btw I don't do this to save the earth, I do it because it's cheaper and because (I'm 99% certain) it's safer than trusting Nestle or Pepsico or whoever it was that bottled the "spring" water. And no I'm not against saving the earth, I would be all for it if it were in danger. But it's not.

Re:I'm guilty

[electroniceric]

You might also mention the health benefits of not ingesting plastic or other petrochemicals that have leached out of the plastic bottle into that magnificent spring water. Pthalates and many other plastics are well-known endocrine disruptors, and at the least appear to cause androgyny in various species and may well be part of earlier onset of puberty, obesity, and other conditions.

Not drinking water that has sat for weeks or months in plastic bottle spares you all that.

No to mention that your municipal water supply (in developed countries) has to meet much stricter standards on what is in the water than do most bottled water companies.

Just please don't release bacteria

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that some seemingly smart person will propose one day to release bacteria into the oceans that can digest plastic and eat it. Just that person will cause us more trouble than we ever wanted. The reason we use plastic is because it can't be digested by bacteria. If we teach bacteria how to do it efficiently we'll get the bill sooner or later by not being able to continue to use plastic for most of its purposes, like containing food, or to keep the bacteria out from medical equipment (non septic stuff is always packaged inside plastic, that's not for the cool looks), etc.

The real problem we have is

[timmee]

Overpopulation. The planet has 7.5 billion people, all of whom want to live the good life as seen in Hollywood movies and TV. One estimate has us reaching 10 billion by 2050. If there were only a billion, some plastic waste and CO2 emissions might not be such a problem. But the existing 7.5 billion folks are already destroying the biosphere, and that is today, where only a few percent (like the US, Western Europe) are enjoying the wonderful lifestyle. Good luck trying to convince all 7.5+ billion people to stop aspiring to own a car and eat steak. It will only get worse. In the long run, however, it will probably be a self-correcting problem, if you know what I mean.

Re:World uses lots of oil

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it was suggested that these things are eating up our oil supply. It was suggested that they are dangerously contaminating the marine environment.

Re: Drill your own well

[zilym]

Rain water can be indeed excellent. It is essentially distilled water, the purest water there is.

But rain is unpredictable. Rainwater is sometimes contaminated by bird droppings, dust, critters, etc. Maybe you can build enough water storage to get you through an extended drought, but then again, are you sure it will be enough?

I would suggest that a well is more reliable and sustainable. Waste water can be recycled in a never ending circle. The water you wash with and flush down the drain today may well be the clean/filtered water that you pump back out of the ground several months from now. This does not require rain occurring regularly. This does not require massive amounts of water storage containment.